Help Leontes beat Geiger plz

Ok, I accept this testimony.
However, this also undeniably proves you are a Persephone player, so you’re found guilty anyway.

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Ok, new, non-Persephone player here, and I’m confused. How does Pers get up to 71 (or 99 damage)?

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Land Mistresses command (1 damage)

During the draw phase that you now control, you have them play an ability and then counter it. Persephone’s counter allows them to pay 10 life to use the ability anyways, but during MC you control that decision. Theoretically 40 unjokerable damage if you have all 4 counters and they have all 4 draw phase abilities. (41)

You then win the combat phase for free. Persephone’s max combo is K(or 45)6J++ for 30 damage.(71)

Against anyone with draw phase abilities a 30 damage combo is not unreasonable.

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Ah! Yeah, I hadn’t considered the draw-phase counter aspect of all of that. Makes sense.

Here’s some of my thoughts on playing :zane: against :geiger:

The first thing to think about is how to be prepared for when you get knocked down. Geiger can set up horrible Temporal Distortion threats when you are KD’d, so save your Kings, Aces and Jokers for that.

You will often wish for a Joker to face-down against his Cycloid Revolutions (either after you’ve eaten the first two Aces raw and you think he has more or when you have attacked into his dodge when he has Aces in hand), but gold burst Jokers are an important last resort for when you are knocked down vs TD, so be cautious with how you spend Jokers on blue bursts. In mid or late game, if you find yourself with, for example, three Kings and a Joker in hand, you can be happy spending the Joker on blue burst. But if you have, say, one joker and one King in the early game vs known Aces, then maybe just bluff a face down, take 20 damage (hope it’s not more) and move on.

If Geiger has three Aces in discard then your 2s also become attack buttons when KD’d versus TD.

You can mix in throws and blocks from KD when facing TD when you feel it’s appropriate. If you don’t believe his TD threat is so strong; if you have a strong read on blodge; etc, this is when you would use throw/block. Block is safer (because it beats Geiger’s K and Cycloid Revolution) but it’s still not very safe. The risks for throw are numerous and big, and it can be obvious to both players when you will feel safe eating time spirals, so it may never be worth throwing from here.

In short: being knocked down is hard. You might end up eating Aces from a dodge, but you can usually prevent TD combos once you have come prepared.
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Once you know what you need to keep in hand for when you’re KD’d you can now think about the neutral game. Zane has great options for beating time spirals. 2 and 3 poke beat Fast and/or Slow Time Spiral, they also give you normal draw and can lead to big damage – this is all really advantageous. Zane also gets relatively good value from dodging, so that’s an okay option. It’s also usually okay to eat a Fast Time Spiral with a throw, because the throw win is way better for you than the Fast TS win is for him. Eating Slow TS is not so much fun because it’s a linker, but throws are still important enough, for damage and suppressing Geiger’s hand size, that this will be a risk you are willing to expose yourself to. As with so many things, it’s a matter of balance. But remember that you have the advantage here; Geiger has to block a lot so you have good reason to throw.

So pokes, dodges and throws give you plenty of tools to get through those Time Spirals and reap big additional rewards while doing it. On top of all that, Time Stop throw is relatively taxing on Geiger’s hand. If Geiger lands TS throws frequently during a game then his hand will most likely be weak for TD combos frequently during that game.

This is not to say that it’s all easy, strong Geiger players can quickly turn the tables even when you thought you had them on the back foot. But you have so many good options in neutral that you can start to feel confident. You can be happy taking chunks off Geiger’s life, but also taking the opportunity to build your own hand. Building your hand is a good thing because MA really messes with Geiger’s knock-down TD games (and also kills him too, which is nice).
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Creator & Destroyer I think is best used to pillage his Aces. You will often also catch Geiger’s other good cards when you are aiming for his Aces, but you won’t ever waste your C&D when you aim for known Aces.
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The idea of weakening Geiger’s hand is important, but I find you don’t want to get too caught up in it. Geiger can turn a relatively small hand (say, 7 cards) into a perfectly built small hand with some well timed R&Ds and TDs. This ability of Geiger’s to all-of-a-sudden become hugely threatening, even when you have kept his hand size down, can be very disheartening. You just have to keep in mind that these bursts of hand quality are something he has to spend a lot of effort building towards, especially if you are keeping some pressure on his hand with throws, and you will rip lumps off his HP while he’s doing it. So not letting Geiger build easily is the right plan, just be prepared for the fact that, almost no matter what you do, he is still going to quickly become threatening at times, but know that you are making him pay a heavy price to get there.
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That’s probably enough words for now. I hope this gives you a bit more confidence in this match up.

I’m open to correction on any of the above if anybody can see something I’ve left out or gotten wrong.

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